Carnival Cruise Brides?

I've been looking at all the different packages that are offered by the various cruise lines. It seems like Carnival offers the most bang for your buck. I was wondering if anyone has been married on a carnival cruise or witnessed a wedding on carnival? Was it nice? Also, how helpful are the cruiseline WC's with planning? I wish there was a standard timeline for planning cruise weddings. I have no idea when to send save the dates, invites, etc. or what to include. I'll take any advice I can get. Thanks!

I'm getting married on the Carnival Miracle on 8/19/2010, and have already sent out my Save the Dates. I'll be sending invitations in April, which will also include a final payment reminder for sailing guests. We booked our wedding package last month, and I've spoken to our Carnival WC a few times...she's answered any questions I've had. They use "A Wedding For You" for the ceremony (we're getting married in port in NYC), but I haven't talked to anyone from there yet. There's some pictures of Carnival weddings on the Cruise Critic Wedding/Honeymoon message board.

Did you book your wedding package already? If you did, then I'd send your Save the Dates as soon as possible to give your guests enough time to save money. If not, send them as soon as you have all of your info. I included a cruise itinerary, payment plan info, our TA's info, payment cards that my TA made, her business card and a save the date magnet (I used business cards and self-adhesive business card magnets) as well as our wedding website address. My TA has a hold on our block of cabins until August 11th, so I wanted to give everyone enough time to decide whether or not they're coming and get their deposits in.

WOW.. you are on top of things. I am hoping for a June 2010 cruise wedding and haven't even booked the cruise yet. I plan to book within the next week and reserve a block of cabins for guests who will most likely cruise with us. Did you book the cruise first and then the wedding? I want to make sure that they can do the wedding on the day and in the port that I want. Crossing my fingers everything is still available. Most of our guests know our tentative plans and that they should start saving up for a cruise wedding. AAAHHHHH so much to do!

You have to book your cruise before you book your wedding but you can call the wedding dept and find out if someone has already booked a wedding for that day first. I booked 18 mos before and sent out an email save the date right away then sent out a real save the date a year before (i think i don't remember exactly when I sent them out). Then I sent out my invitations the beginning of June as a formality, most had already booked but we did find out about some nonsailing guests that we didn't know were coming. I'm getting married next month (aggghhh finally!) on the Destiny in the Port of Miami so I can show you my pics when I get back. I'm also on the cruise critic board and couldn't live without both of these sites!

This is what I did....We wanted to get married in port in NYC so we could have non-sailing guests (they allow up to 50) so I called before I booked to make sure there was an opening for the cruise we wanted. It's a good thing I called when I did, because there was only one spot left for an embarkation day wedding. The wedding dept put a 48 hour hold on the wedding package for me, so I could contact my TA and book our cabin. My wedding guests have a $25 initial deposit through the TA, but Carnival said that the bride & groom's cabin must have at least a $300 per person deposit in order to reserve the wedding package.

Will you be having an onboard wedding? If not, even if there's no wedding packages available for your date, you could always use a non-Carnival wedding coordinator on the island.

We are using Carnival for our travel arrangements--- much much much cheaper for our guest, to stay and eat all they want include, but we are hopping off the boat and getting married on the beach in the Bahamas and then having a mini rececption and then a full reception on the ship the next day--- GOOOD LUCK

I was hoping for onboard. If it's not available I would def. consider a non-carnival WC. My only concern is weather and having to skip the port. Maybe I'm being a little paranoid, but I would hate to plan all this and not be able to get married in the end. I guess this is the risk we take as destination wedding brides. Thanks for the suggestion!

That's another reason we chose to get married on embarkation day...I would definitely be stressing about the weather until the wedding day.